Organic cotton cultivation in India: Current status, challenges and opportunities

Cotton (Gossypium spp.) is one of the major fibre crops cultivated globally. Conventional cotton cultivation consumes hazardous synthetic agro-chemicals that cause damage to ecosystems, pollute waterways and endanger the soil as well as human health. Organic farming advocates on-farm management of inputs instead of relying on external inputs and counters the ill effects of conventional farming. Organic cotton cultivation is a more holistic farming approach to restore soil health and ecosystem. India accounts for 50% of organic cotton produced worldwide but her share is declining. There are concerns with organic cotton like availability of quality non-transgenic seeds, quality bio-rationals, potential GM contamination, etc. Desi cotton (G. arboreum) has an edge over American cotton for adapting under organic condition due to better host-plant resistance, drought tolerance and exclusion of on-field GM contamination. The National Agricultural Research System (NARS) is continuously identifying non-GM cultivars with improved fibre traits and documenting and validating organic package of practices for different agro-ecological regions. There is an urgent need to activate the seed chain of non-GM varieties to meet the requirement of organic cotton farmers.Training and capacity building of different stakeholders need to be taken up for improving the productivity. Organic cotton cultivation being an environmentally friendly technology with lower energy footprints would help in safeguarding the health of human being as well as planet Earth